This invention generally concerns a pulverizer which has its principal application in crushing and pulverizing small objects, especially medical tablets and pills.
Certain patients have difficulty swallowing standard medication. For example, many children have difficulty swallowing tablets, and many mental patients refuse to swallow them. At one time, many medications could be obtained in bulk form, but now most drugs are supplied in dosage amounts. Therefore, many hospitals must crush and pulverize dosage forms of drugs prior to administering them to patients. Conventionally, a mortar and pestle is used and the powder is usually stored in small paper cups until administered to the patient.
This method, however, has significant problems. First, the mortar and pestle both must be cleaned after every use or both would become contaminated with different drugs. Second, there is danger of losing some drug in the transfer between the mortar and the paper cup, and in some instances, this can result in improper dosage to the patient. Third, a mortar and pestle is slow and difficult to use especially with coated tablets which are difficult to crack initially without causing loss of part of the object.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to solve the above-mentioned problems. Particularly, the following are objects of the invention: to prevent the mortar from becoming contaminated with drugs; to prevent possible loss of medication in the transfer between a mortar and a container; to provide a pulverizer that is fast and simple to use; to crack hard coated objects with minimal effort and without risk of losing material from the mortar; and to pulverize hard objects to a fine powder.